Teachers protest reopening schools in central Ohio

In her 24 years of teaching, Brittany Alexander said she’s never felt dread ahead of a new school year.

This year, that changed.

The Hilliard teacher said feelings of anxiety and uncertainty, not her usual excitement, accompany thoughts of the upcoming school year. That’s true not just for her, but for many educators throughout Ohio, she said.

Until last week, Hilliard and most central Ohio school districts had planned for students and employees to return to buildings in some capacity at the start of the 2020-21 school year. Following stricter guidance from area health departments, most school officials abruptly sidelined those plans last week, due to increasing coronavirus cases locally and statewide. But several districts, including Canal Winchester, Olentangy, Pickerington and Licking Heights, still planned to move forward with a combination of in-person and online instruction as of Monday morning. Others, such as Dublin and New Albany, were still mulling the decision.

>>> Read more: What’s your Columbus-area school district’s plan for reopening?

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“I think our districts are doing their best to keep us safe, but you just can’t negotiate with a virus, and that’s what we’re trying to do,” said Alexander, who teaches sixth-grade language arts. “It’s scary.”

So on Monday morning, Alexander and about 20 teachers from area schools decorated their car windows in an Ohio State University parking lot and paraded them through Downtown, bearing messages like “one dead child is one too many” and “we are not your science experiment.” They honked car horns outside several prominent buildings, including the Ohio Statehouse and the offices for the Ohio Department of Education and Ohio Education Association, as well as the Columbus City Schools administration building — in support of the first district in central Ohio to announce a shift to completely online learning on July 28.

The group of teachers’ goal is for no in-person classes until a school district’s county has experienced 14 days without a new coronavirus case. The novel coronavirus' incubation period is typically two to 14 days.

Some teachers are still expected to report to schools to deliver online instruction, or for training, which is also unacceptable, the group said.

Monday’s demonstration, which Alexander helped organize, follows several parent and student protests outside area school board meetings last week. Those groups, meanwhile, oppose moving classes online to start the 2020-21 school year.

A group of parents is planning more protests outside at least eight area high school buildings Tuesday night, in hopes of persuading school leaders to return to in-person classes five days a week, with minimal restrictions, to start the upcoming school year.

“Little kids don’t learn from a screen,” said Leslie Drexel, 44. “If parents are working, who’s teaching these kids on the screen all day?”

Drexel and Kimberly Hartman, both of Hilliard, are planning Tuesday night’s protests.

“It is for more than just an educational instruction to get them back into school,” said Hartman, 39. “It’s for their health and their well-being to get into school.”

Monday’s teacher protesters acknowledged that online classes are often inconvenient.

Kelsey Burkett, a seventh- and eighth-grade choir teacher for Hilliard, said she can’t plan a yearly musical and doesn’t know when she will be able to gather a group of singing students again. Despite those challenges, teaching from home is safest, she said.

“I have brothers and sisters in other districts that may not be safe,” Burkett said. “That’s why I’m here today.”

Adrienne Bowden, a Pickerington eighth-grade science and math teacher, said she’s also concerned about keeping the community safe from coronavirus spread. Teachers report back Aug. 10, while students will return Aug. 24 in a hybrid format, with two days of class in-person and three online.

At an Indiana junior high school, a student tested positive for coronavirus the first day the school reopened last Thursday, sending anyone the student came into close contact with into quarantine.

In Georgia’s largest school district, 260 educators were “excluded from work” Thursday for either testing positive for the coronavirus or being exposed to it — after attending in-person training sessions on Wednesday.

Bowden understands families’ frustrations. She has a son who is a high school senior and could miss out on many milestones if classes shift online, she said.

But Bowden questioned how districts would address a student or teacher dying after contracting COVID-19 at school and the effect it could have on students. She has already lost a friend to the disease and also said some of her family has been hospitalized because of it.

“I’ve seen the impact. It’s very real,” Bowden said. “To me, this is a life-and-death issue.”

Dispatch reporter Megan Henry contributed to this story.

awidmanneese@dispatch.com

@AlissaWidman